Reusable Materials 4: Typical Questions on Scholarship Applications

Thursdays we discuss how reusable materials WOW committees and save time

Claire started applying for scholarships when she was in the 10th grade. She started her master application when she was in the 9th grade. She included answers to basic personal, educational, and other information. She also started keeping track of the facts for her themes and home run statements.

Questions to Include in Your Master Application

Part A of your master application includes the short answers to the questions on scholarship applications. We reviewed 11 applications to identify these questions:

• Information About You
  • First, middle, last name, address, city, state, and zip code
  • Mobile and home phone, email address, social security, or personal ID
  • Date of birth, age, citizenship, gender, ethnicity, and languages spoken
  • Field of study, possible majors and minors in college
• Information about Parents, Guardians, or Spouse
  • Names of parents, address, state, and zip code
  • Military rank, present station/address, phone
  • Married, single, divorced, and widowed
  • Schools parents attended, current student, ethnic ancestry
• Information about Schools
  • Name of the high school, address, city, state, zip code, and school district
  • Graduation date, dates attended, type of current curriculum, or international diploma
  • Cumulative high school GPA, class rank & size, composite ACT/SAT scores
  • Advanced placement classes and concurrent enrollment classes attended
  • Colleges you wish to attend and desired major, minor, or study
• Post High School Studies
  • Name(s) of post high school, address, city, state, zip code, & district
  • Type of school, dates attended, hours attended or planned to attend
  • Completion date, completion document (certificate, degree, or other)
• Work History (add information for each job)
  • Name of business, address, city, state, zip code, phone, & email address
  • Type of organization, your position/duties, and dates employed
  • Reason for leaving, supervisor’s name
• Volunteer History (add information for each service or organization)
  • Organization name, type of organization, address, city, state, zip
  • Phone number, email address, supervisor’s name,
  • Service performed, type of service, how many people benefited
  • # of people in the group that served, days/hours of service, & who served

Saturday we will share the caution about financial aid for proprietary for-profit schools

Sources of Money 4: Back to College Cash for Non-Traditional Students

On Tuesdays we review a source of financial aid available to help you pay for college

Jayne, in her early 40’s, had to go back to college when her husband left her. They had married young and had the first of their four children within 18 months. Jayne had dropped out of college to raise their children. Her husband’s salary provided nicely for the family, so she had stayed home with the children. Now, with four children ranging from 12-22 she faced going back to school with almost no money to pay for it. She attended one of our workshops, worked with the coaches, and with a community program for single mothers. She obtained enough scholarships and grants to pay tuition, books, fees, and partial housing for all four years in a nursing program.

Good Resource for Adults Returning to College

Back to College (wwwback2college.com) bills itself as “an all-in-one resource for the adult returning to college.” They provide a dazzling, almost overwhelming, amount of information and helps for adults. This web site, offered by WD Communications, offers much more than scholarship searches. They include:

• Ask the Experts and FAQ on all subjects relating to going back to college
• Scholarships for Re-entry students: Grants and Retraining Assistance for Adults Returning to College is a $39.95 downloadable (PDF) “Guide for adult students”
• Their free newsletter “provides news, features, and resource updates (including information on financial aid and new degree programs) each month.”
• Search engine to find a degree program that is right for you
• Advice on choosing what you want to do in your career
• Forums that allow you to connect with other adults returning to college
• Links to sources of discounted textbooks
• Excellent list of books about returning to college later in life

Cautions About Back to College

Be aware of a few challenges when using the site

• The home page is so busy with offers that you may have difficulty discerning ads from legitimate content
• Limited free listings for financial aid (they want you to buy the book)

Thursday we outline some of the questions asked on scholarship applications

Caveat Emptor or Buyer Beware 3: Careful with Promotions & Contests

Saturdays we share tips or cautions to facilitate getting scholarships or avoid problems

Promotions Masquerade as Scholarships

I repeat what I’ve said earlier. Most of the scholarship search engines we will share with you do not cost you anything. They receive their funding from banner ads, selling emails, and other sources. Their biggest source of income, however, has become promotions, contests, and surveys.

Promotions appear on your lists of results for many search engines. They typically announce their intent to promote a specific product or service. Frequently, the search engine itself sponsors the contest. You need to read the fined print to determine how safe the promotion is. For example, I copied this phrase from one particular promotion “If you express interest in particular schools or affiliates, College Prowler Inc. may sell or transfer your personal information to those schools or affiliates accordingly.”

Of course, the search engines put a positive spin. Fastweb.com, for example, states

“While it seems that the overachievers eventually get cash from somewhere — be it their school or an independent scholarship donor — the “B” and “C” students are often overlooked.

That’s why promotional scholarships are more important than ever. Let’s face it, promotional awards may not challenge your intellect like writing an essay, but contests like FastWeb’s Why I Deserve a Scholarship video contest, Create Your Own Scholarship and Scholarship BootCamp can still earn you valuable cash for school. Most don’t have strict terms or require essays and there are lots of them out there.”

You read the warnings and find print. You decide.

 

Legitimate and Illegitimate Contests

Contests are a closely related cousin to the promotional scholarships. Some contests legitimately create situations for you to compete against others based on the skills of the applicant. For example,

• Film contests for the student that produces and submits the best video based on a theme
• Piano contests for the person who submits the best tape or live piano performance

Illegitimate contests will ask you to do something or submit something that enters you in a drawing.

Tuesday we will review the scholarship search engine www.backtoschool.com

Reusable Materials 3: Master Application to Save Time & Impress

Thursdays we discuss how reusable materials WOW committees and save time

Nathan worked hard and got good grades. He met with one of our coaches. He learned about the 5 steps to earning scholarship money. He met with a coach and worked hard with his parents. He prepared a master application to save time. His master application allowed him to complete an entire application in less than 60 minutes. More importantly, his master application provided well-conceived and impressive answers that he could copy and paste into actual applications. He earned enough money to pay for all four years of his tuition, books, housing, 2 computers. He also earned enough money to buy some of his food over the 4 years.

Purpose of Your Master Application

You create your master application using a cloud based document such as Google Drive or MS Live. Your application contains answers to all of the questions listed on scholarship applications. A master application:

• Impresses scholarship committees with answers that you prepared, edited, and perfected
• Submits scholarship applications in less than 60 minutes so that you can submit more applications and get more money

Sections of Your Master Application

Master applications contain three major sections. I will briefly review them today and provide more detail in future posts.

• Part A contains all the short answers for questions about
  • Personal information
  • School names, addresses, and contact information
  • Work history, company names, addresses, results, duties, and responsibilities
  • Clubs, association, and other membership information
• Part B highlights special activities like
  • Athletic competitions and championships
  • Music or dance recitals, performances, and competitions
  • Drama performances, roles, and competitions
  • High school and college transcripts (not for official submission, but to use to calculate hours in courses and GPA in courses)
• Part C includes the answers to the longer questions in applications
  • Themes include the activities you love to do. You should select 3-4
  • You illustrate your breadth of experience for each theme by breaking it into three categories
  • You demonstrate depth with three home run statements for each category

Saturday we will share a caution about promotions or contests appearing as scholarships

Sources of Money 3: FastWeb Scholarship Search Engine

On Tuesdays we review a source of financial aid available to help you pay for college

John returned to school when his back prevented him from working in construction anymore. He and Jill, his wife, had three children. Vocational Rehabilitation would pay a very little money, but would not pay for his degree. They had struggled through his first year of school, but money would run out during the second year. They did not see how they could continue. They attended our workshop and went to work. Eight months later Jill visited the center. She excitedly told me that scholarships would now pay for all of his last two years tuition and books. They had even earned enough scholarship money to help pay their rent.

Advantages of Using Fastweb

I visited Fastweb before seeing any other scholarship engines. They really impressed me with the strategy, style, and results. Students regularly qualified for 150-300 scholarships. No scams, contests, promotions, and surveys appeared in their results. I still recommended everyone register on Fastweb and create a profile, but lately the results impress me less.

Like other scholarship search engines, Fastweb requests that you register and complete a profile. The profile will ask you to indicate your past memberships and activities. Each item in the profile indicates someone who is giving money away. So, include all your activities. For example:

• Memberships in clubs and civic organizations
• Participation in sports and athletics
• Leadership experiences and positions
• Creative arts, performances, or writings
• Civic and community service
• Parent's employment and memberships
• Military experience

Fastweb will also notify you of additional scholarships as they find them.

Cautions

Fastweb requires fewer cautions than most of the sources we recommend. However, you still need to:

• Click "No thank you" every time you see it (in very small font)
• Very few contests, promotions, and surveys appear on Fastweb (that's good)
• Delete them if you see them, unless they are legitimate contests for videos, performances, or similar situations
• You may wish to create a separate email address for all scholarship searches

Thursday we review the sections of a reusable master application

Caveat Emptor or Buyer Beware 2: Discard and Avoid Surveys

Saturdays we share tips or cautions to facilitate getting scholarships or avoid problems

Renee attended one of our workshops in July and sent us this email in October “I am going to school at BYU-Idaho and am majoring in Vocal Performance. I have been awarded $7,068 is scholarship and grant money! Thank you so much for helping me! My schooling is paid for for both semesters and I even had money left over to pay for my housing. Thanks again!”

The Growth of Surveys on Scholarship Search Engines

In the last few years we’ve seen a significant surge in the number surveys appearing in scholarship searches. Marketers discovered the Internet to provide unprecedented and inexpensive access to targeted markets. High school and college students represent a coveted buying public with access to parent’s cash. As a result, surveys constitute 40-60% of the results listed by some scholarship search engines.

After you complete a profile, scholarship search engines will generate a list of scholarships that your profile indicated you qualified for. Many of the lists will tell you whether that scholarship is a scholarship, essay, survey, competition, or promotion.

Scholarship surveys typically ask you to complete a certain number of surveys a week for a specified number of weeks. At the end of the designated time period the recipient “will be entered into a drawing for $10,000” (or whatever the award amount).

Problems with Surveys

Unfortunately, scholarship surveys also pose problems:

• Each survey gathers information for the marketing needs of several companies
• Most surveys solicit your agreement to allow them to share your information
• Companies typically send survey respondents several emails soliciting
• Completing all of the surveys does not guarantee that you will receive any money
• Respondents names become part of a drawing with thousands to millions of others

Most search engines allow you to save, favorite, discard or delete offerings that you will not submit applications. We recommend that you discard all surveys, rather than wasting time while receiving unwanted solicitations or emails for a lottery.

Tuesday we will spotlight how Scholarship.com can provide you with lists of scholarships

Reusable Materials 2: Sources of Letters of Recommendation

Thursday we discuss how reusable materials WOW committees & Save time applying
Renee attended one of our workshops in July and sent us this email in October :“I am going to school at BYU-Idaho  and am majoring in Vocal Performance. I have been awarded $7,068 in scholarship and grant money! Thank you so much for helping me! My schooling is paid for for both semesters and I even had money left over to pay for my housing. Thanks again!”

Identify People to Write Letters of Recommendation

Most scholarship applications require that you submit several letters of recommendation. Many students, both youth and adult, gather letters of recommendation as they prepare the application. This can cause delays and reduce the number of applications you submit.
Sometimes students struggle to find people to write letters of recommendation. We offer these ideas to help you select appropriate letter writers. First, pick a person who knows you well. Pick one person from each of the groups listed below:

• School Leaders
  • School teachers from your favorite or best classes
  • Coaches that worked with you in athletics, academic, or drama
  • Principals, vice-principals, or guidance counselors
• Community leaders
  • Directors of community organizations that received your service or finances
  • Leaders of civic clubs or institutions you belong to
  • Elected legislators, mayors, city Councils, department heads
• Church Leaders
  • Pastor, Reverend, Priest, Bishop, Deacon, Mullah, Rabbi
  • Sunday School teacher, advisors, youth leaders
  • Church sports’ coaches
• Employers
  • Supervisor, manager, or director
  • Co-workers, colleagues, peers
  • Clients, customers, vendors, suppliers
• Others
  • Influential civic, business, and charitable leaders
  • Prestigious family and friends that the committee may know

Preparing the Letter Writers

Letters of recommendation provide scholarship committees with validation to the character and achievements of the applicant. Letters, therefore, become more influential when they confirm things you submitted in your application. You can prepare the letter writer by:

• Offering to draft the letter for their review and editing
• Provide them with your home run statements applicable to what you did for them
• Ask for an electronic and hardcopy

Saturday we will share a caution about responding to surveys listed in scholarships

Sources of Money 2: Search Engine Scholarship.com

On Tuesdays we review a source of financial aid available to help you pay for college

Margaret was returning to college to get a second bachelor’s degree. Her first degree, in social work, did not interest her. She wanted to teach and coach in high school. She worried that no one would offer scholarships to obtain a second degree. She completed her profile on the scholarship search engine Scholarship.com. It listed 64 scholarships for her. Not all of them were a perfect match, but they gave her hope.

Multiple Features on Scholarships.com

As with several search engines, you complete the profile to see a list of scholarships that match your experience. Make sure you always click “No Thanks” whenever you see it or they will sell your email address to other companies. You will find 2-3 questions on each page that should require a “No Thanks” for 1 legitimate question on the profile.

Scholarship.com (www.scholarships.com) provides several other great features. Look for them on the bottom of the home page. Click on the link you wish to explore. The specific scholarships will appear on the left side of the window:

• Remember as you complete your profile that every item listed provides money
• Scholarships sorted by grade level, major, state, and type
• Contests and sweepstakes (avoid them)
• Federal aid, information, tips, grants, and student loans
• Strategies for completing applications
• College searches
• Good information about campus life and other “Resources” to help you
• “List a Scholarship” allows companies, families, or individuals to offer money
• Examine the “Unusual Scholarships” at the bottom of the page

Cautionary Features on Scholarship.com:

• Clicking on the window in general tends to open an application for Discovery Card
• Once again, there will be 2-4 offers that require you click “No thanks”
• Delete the contests and surveys from the list of results
• Avoid the “We Help Colleges Recruit” section unless you want unsolicited emails
• Scholarships.com does not provide a summary page, but links you directly to the scholarship sponsor’s pages

We hope you get money from Scholarship.com.

Thursday we review how reusable letters of recommendation reinforce what you say

Tip to Get Money for College 1: Recognize They Want to Reward You

Saturdays we share tips and cautions to help you do better at getting the money for college

Christy got decent grades but not great (3.6 GPGA). She participated in school clubs, choirs, and activities. She donated her time to the local food bank, nursing homes, and caring for people with disabilities. The trouble? Christy was shy. She didn’t stand out or call attention to herself. She qualified for 145 scholarships. She didn’t believe she deserved them. She doubted herself. She understated all of her accomplishments in the four applications she submitted. She accepted the rejections as confirmation that she was not good enough. She never applied for anything else.

What Scholarship Committees Seek to Reward

Committees seek to reward  people with scholarships. They give the awards based on two main criteria:

• Subject specific criteria rewards students based on certain requirements important to the sponsor. For example,
  • Duct tape rewards people who use duct tape to create prom outfits
  • Calgon Bath Oils rewards people who use Calgon bath oil products
  • Professional associations reward children of members of the association
  • Many scholarship want to reward 3.0 GPAs
  • Fewer scholarships want to reward 2.5 and lower GPAs
• Personal qualities criteria rewards students who demonstrate character traits important to the sponsor. For example they want to reward,
  • Integrity and honesty
  • Hard work
  • Overcoming obstacles
  • Teamwork
  • Perseverance
  • Individual initiative
  • Passion & enthusiasm
  • Responsibility
  • Civic duty
  • Purpose
  • Character

You will notice that GPA is included as a specific subject criteria. They want to reward you if you qualify for either or both of the criteria.

Believe They Want to Reward You—and Act on Faith

You have to believe they want to reward you to

• Act with confidence and faith
• Prepare your reusable materials
• Describe what you have done honestly without understating or downplaying 
• Persevere to submit 60-150 applications

Take a test:

• Look at the list of personal qualities above.
• Write down the ones you do not possess.
• If you write down fewer than 3—committees want to reward you!!
• Just accept the fact!

Tuesday we review how the web site ScholarshipHelp.org can help you get money

Reusable Materials 1: Overview

Thursdays we discuss how reusable materials WOW committees & save time applying

Diane, a single mother of three, went back to college in her 30s. Charity from her Church and the government allowed her to attend. She attended our workshop because she no longer wanted to be a “charity case”. She wanted to earn her money by what she did. She worked with two coaches every week for 7 months. She completed 3-4 applications a week using the methods we taught her. In twelve months she had received enough scholarships to pay for tuition, books. lab fees, and housing (her mortgage) for the last two years of college—and she had $98,000 awarded to cover her entire masters in chemical engineering.

Assembly Line Rather Than “From Scratch”

Many people think they will complete 2-6 scholarships or grants because they won’t qualify for more. So, they approach every application from scratch.  They gather all the information from a variety of sources, scraps of paper their mother saved, or wing it from memory for each application. This time consuming and inefficient method frustrates, confuses, and overwhelms potential students or their parents. So they stop applying.

Most students, with a 3.0 or better and an active life, will complete 60-150 applications over three years. We suggest that you prepare materials to use repeatedly to copy and paste information into applications. It takes longer in the beginning, but once finished, you can complete an entire application in 30-60 minutes. You assemble and complete applications like an assembly line at a factory using reusable materials .

What Reusable Materials to Prepare

You will need to prepare:

• Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) each year February through May
• Master Application containing answers to applications, lists of achievements, and themes with home run statements
• 5-6 Reusable Essays you can adapt, attach, or paste into applications
• Letters of Recommendation from at least 5 people from school, work, and the community

We will share tips for preparing these reusable materials each Thursday in this blog.

Saturday we emphasize that you are the person they want to reward with money

Sources of Money: FinAid.org

On Tuesdays we review a source of financial aid available to help you pay for college

A woman stopped me in the hall. Her husband had returned to college with two years to go. She and he had three children. She reported that after taking our workshop—and working with a coach for several months—he had earned enough scholarships to pay for the last two years of college. The scholarships not only covered his tuition and books, but paid their rent, paid for a computer, and helped buy food each month.

FinAid Outlines Multiple Sources of Financial Aid

You access FinAid at http://www.finaid.org/ or by linking from our web site at http://goalsguylarry.com/?page_id=2805. The Monster Company, Monster Board job search site, sponsors the web site. Mark Kantrowitz publishes it.

The “About FinAid” pages states

“FinAid was established in the fall of 1994 as a public service. This award-winning site has grown into the most comprehensive source of student financial aid information, advice and tools -- on or off the web.

Access to FinAid is free for all users and there is no charge to link to the site.

FinAid has earned a stellar reputation in the educational community as the best web site of its kind. It's comprehensive, it's informative, it's objective -- and it's the first stop on the web for students looking for ways to finance their education.”

FinAid gives good information about a variety of financial aid types including

• Scholarships: including the Fast Web Scholarship database and how to avoid scams
• Loans including PLUS, Stafford, Perkins, and more
• Savings including prepaid tuition 529 savings plans
• Military aid from ROTC to aid for veterans
• Other types of aid like lotteries, graduate or professional schools, and other innovative programs
• Forms and instructions for filling out FAFSA and more
• Calculators and other tools

Tips for Using FinAid

• Avoid clicking on the Ads
• Click on the “Site Map” to see a list of everything you can review
• Click “Answering Your Questions” for articles, tips, FAQ, and personalized help

Thursday we list reusable materials so you can finish applications in 60 minutes or less

Caveat Emptor or Let the Buyer Beware 1: Click “No Thank You”

Saturdays we provide tips to help you get money or avoid scams and traps

Gloria told her scholarship coach that she had used a scholarship search engine and qualified for 245 sources of financial aid. After she applied for many of them, she began to receive hundreds and thousands of spam emails. She couldn’t figure out who had sold her email address. She did not know that she had inadvertently given some of the search engines permission to sell her email address. She had forgotten the cautions we gave her in the scholarship workshop.

How Scholarship Search Engines Cover Costs

Almost all of the scholarship search engines you will encounter will cost you no money to use. Yet, they must make money to cover overhead and (since most of them are owned be for-profit companies) profits. How do they raise money—they monetize the web site.

They carry advertisements to pay for the service they provide you for free. You will recognize some of the ads easily. They will appear in sidebars, banners, and blocks with “Ads by…”. Most, however, appear in the questions they ask you as you fill out your profile.

You will answer profile questions when you register on a search engine. The search engine matches you to scholarships based on your answers to the profile questions. In recent years, the search engines include questions that appear legitimate. They are really advertisements disguised as profile questions. They may ask:

• “Would you like to learn more about online education?”
• “Would you like to explore how the military can help you pay for schooling?”
• “Are you interested in how XX Credit Card can help you pay for college?”

Always Click “No thank you”

The advertisements will offer you two choices:

• “Yes! Tell Me More” usually in 28 point font on a brightly colored banner
• “No thank you” in plain text with .5 point font

We advise you to always click “No Thank You” when you see it—unless you want 4,000 spam emails in 2 months.

Tuesday we will review the web site FinAid.org that outlines multiple sources of money

Sources of Money for College You Do Not Have to Pay Back

I will share a variety of sources for money over the course of this blog

A father approached me after a meeting. He told me that he and two of his daughters had attended a scholarship workshop four years before. One daughter was a freshman in college, the other a sophomore in high school. He told me that the older would graduate that year and the younger one had just started college. He then gleefully reported that the only money he had to send any of them for college, since the workshop, had been in their Christmas cards as presents.

Various Sources to Find Money for College

You can find money to pay for college from hundreds of places. Each Tuesday, I will spotlight a different source. For now, I would like to lay a framework to help you categorize the sources I will share.

You may get several kinds of money to pay for college:

• Grants
  • Basic grants usually award money based on the economic need of the student and their family
  • Research grants provide funds to study academic areas of interest to the sponsors
• Scholarships typically reward someone for achievements, merit, membership, ethnic background, personality traits or other subject criteria
• Loans (direct, indirect, guaranteed or unguaranteed) give money with an expectation that the student or family will pay it back
• Educational Reimbursements involve employers reimbursing employees, after course completion and based on grades received, a portion of the tuition for courses they feel will make the student a better employee.
• Student Work Program reimburses colleges for tuition, housing, or more based on the student working at the school for what they receive
• Savings of the student themselves of family members possibly using a 529 student savings plan
• Working your way through college, while increasingly unpopular by both students and colleges, provides money for college and a resume of experience upon graduation
• Miscellaneous other financial aid including

 Where to Find Money

• Internet search engines
• School guidance counselors
• Books and other publications
• Community organizations

Saturday we will caution you about deceptive traps that appear to offer financial aid

Welcome to Larry on Scholarships 1: Purpose of this Blog

This begins a new blog from Larry Stevenson to help you get money to pay for college

John met with Sylvia, one of my staff. John and his son had attended a scholarship workshop I had taught seven months earlier. John excitedly reported that his son, a junior in high school, had done everything outlined in the workshop. he worked hard with his son on 1) setting a goal and believing he deserved the money, 2) finding scholarships, 3) completing a master application, 4)writing reusable essays, and 5) obtaining impressive letters of recommendation.

John’s son had already earned $60,000 in scholarships and had 70 more applications to complete.

My Experience with Scholarships

I always thought I was too stupid to earn scholarships. I applied for what I thought was a scholarship (awarded on merit), but turned out to be a grant (awarded on need). They rejected me because my dad earned too much money. The rejection confirmed what I knew—I was too dumb. I never applied for anything else.

In the early 1980s, I read about a girl with a 3.4 GPA who won $310,000 in scholarships. I researched—and continue to study—how people get others to pay for college. In 2001, I started teaching monthly scholarship workshops to high school students, their parents and other adults.

Thousands of people who attended the workshops earned college money from $500-$150,000.

Why Read This Blog

I will share sources of scholarships and tips that will help high school students, their parents and other adults who want to get money to pay for college. I will publish Larry on Scholarships on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. I will begin each post with a success story. I plan to follow this outline:

• Tuesdays: I will review a source of money
• Thursdays: I will highlight how to prepare a specific reusable material
• Saturdays: I will share tips that will help you apply with more confidence

Finally, read this blog so that you can get money to pay for college.

Thursday we will outline major sources of money that you don’t have to pay back